Analysis of The Snowfall
Franz Werfel 1890 (Prague) – 1945 (Manhattan)
Oh the slow fall of snow,
Its unending blanketing swirl!
Yet my mind's eye was giving shape
To what couldn't be kept hidden,
That in the white drifts each fleck
Is known, weighed, counted.
Oh you spinning dancing flakes,
Your tiny souls and personalities
Withstand gravity, weightlessness, wind,
In your coming and going
I see your destinies glide down,
Which you begin, fulfill, begin . . .
This one falls soft and like wool,
The next is crystal and tenacious,
The third's a clenched fist of struggle.
Yet their white realm disperses by morning,
Thus one doesn't die from the rest,
And they dissolve into the purest drop shapes.
Oh the world's slow falling snow,
That race's dense, blanketing swirl!
It perishes and not one fate melts alone.
We melt, but we are left behind
When death, the way spring wind thaws, overtakes
Us drops and comes together home in the womb.
Scheme | ABXXXX CXDEXX XXXEXX ABXDCX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 101111 10101001 11111101 11101110 1001111 11110 1110101 110100100 011001001 0110010 11110011 11010101 1111011 011100010 01011110 11111110 11101101 01010101011 1011101 11011001 110111101 11111101 110111110 11010101001 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 854 |
Words | 151 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 171 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 38 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 06, 2023
- 47 sec read
- 88 Views
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